


missed opportunities/new chances

by torigates



Category: Bones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is there someone you want me to call?” Booth asked</p>
            </blockquote>





	missed opportunities/new chances

  
“Is there someone you want me to call?” Booth asked.

His words hung in the air the entire ride back to Brennan’s apartment. He pulled up to the front of her building, and turned the key in the ignition. The silence in the car seemed overwhelming without the sound of the radio or engine to drown out the echoes of his words and Brennan’s earlier sobs.

“Listen, Bones—” he started, and turned slightly in his seat to face her.

Brennan held up her hand. “It’s okay, Booth,” she told him. It wasn’t, but Brennan had learned a lot. She had learned a lot about how and when to say the right thing, and she tried hard to ignore the fact that she had learned those things from Booth. And here she was using that lesson to comfort Booth, when all she really wanted—and she could admit it, now—was for Booth to tell her that things would be okay.

He searched her face, and Brennan wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find. She was less sure what she wanted him to find.

“It’s not okay,” he told her. “It’s all fucked up.” That, Brennan felt was an accurate way to put things. She still didn’t put any stock in psychology, but part of her wanted someone to explain all this to her. Her over identification with the victim, they way she pushed and pushed and pushed until everyone was out of reach. It was her fault.

“It’s my fault.”

“ _No_.”

“Booth,” she said. It was. It was her fault. She had pushed Booth and everyone around her away. It was like Sweets said; they knew her as much as she allowed them.

“No, it’s not your fault, Bones. It’s not. It’s not anyone’s fault. Our timing was shitty, that’s all.”

Brennan nodded as if she believed this. She couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t too long ago, she and Booth would be sitting in his car after a hard case, and she’d invite him up, and they’d have a drink. She wished she could say that she remembered every single one of those times, they two of them sitting on her couch, or his, but the truth was that they all blended together in her mind, until it seemed like it was always that way: her and Booth on a couch.

She wished she could say she had treasured those moments, but then she wouldn’t have regrets.

“I thought about you,” she said. “In Indonesia.”

Booth looked pained. Brennan allowed herself to briefly wonder how her life would be different had she taken Booth up on his offer. His gamble, really. Maybe they’d be together right now. Maybe Brennan would have pushed him away and broken his heart more than she already did. That was the thing with gambling—every choice was a risk. You could win, sure, but you could lose so much more.

Brennan had never been a risk taker. She was a scientist. She looked at the data, analysed it, looked for the most probable outcomes, and sought the most favourable.

She and Booth were not a probable outcome.

Yet here they were. So many years later, still together. Their partnership shouldn’t work. _They_ shouldn’t work. But they did. And Brennan had wished to hell should could have trusted that would be enough. That she could have trusted Booth, if not herself (her heart, Booth would say).

“I thought about you too,” he finally admitted. And for one second, Brennan allowed herself to really feel that. To really feel what it meant for Booth to say he thought about her, while he was gone.

“Until you met Hannah.”

His face twisted again, and Brennan knew she should stop. She knew she should stop torturing herself and him with what ifs, and could have beens. They had their moment and it passed.

“Come on, Bones. Don’t do that.”

She fell silent.

“I wish—I wish I could make it better for you, Bones, I really do. You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” He reached out, as if to put his hand on her shoulder, or to take her hand, but he pulled back. It wasn’t like Booth to hold back from her. It wasn’t like them to be so awkward around each other.

More than anything, Brennan missed her best friend.

“But?” she asked.

“But, you know if I come inside with you—” he cut off, and Brennan had to take pity on him. This was hard for her. It must have been hard for Booth too.

“I understand,” she told him.

Booth looked so sad, Brennan wanted to reach out and take his hand, in the way she once would have. But taking his hand suddenly meant so much more than it would have before.

“I just—I just never thought we’d end up this way,” he said. His hands were in his lap.

“What way?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just—not us.”

That, Brennan understood all too well. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. “We’ll find a way to get back to what we were.”

He smiled a bit at that. “You’re right.” Brennan didn’t know if she was right. It was terrifying. It was terrifying, this not knowing, and more importantly, it was terrifying to realise, that she was the one comforting Booth.

She had made mistakes. She had regrets. Things were awful now. But Brennan thought about their first case, and all the disaster and heart ache that led to. She had regrets back then too, and things had gotten better. She and Booth had learned to work together once, and if they’d done it once, then Brennan knew they could do it again.

They had learned to be friends once before. That must mean they could learn to be friends again.

Brennan had regrets, but she was starting to think that having regrets meant more than just missed opportunities. They also meant new chances.

She smiled and grabbed her bag. “Will you be all right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she told him. “Will you?”

“I think so.” 


End file.
